A dilly of a dilemma

Here’s the deal. We need your help and imagination right here. Or ultimately, we should say, Dean Highfield is looking for your assistance. Dean lives now in Panama City, Florida, but like the rest of his family, he’s originally from Oil City, Pennsylvania. Dean mailed us this ancient photo that he found amidst his mother’s belongings. He asked us, and we’re asking you brilliant people from the Hemmings Nation, to tell him what’s in the photo.

For whatever it’s worth, here’s my guess: Those may be pickle tanks mounted on the early, open-cab trucks. Oil City is in Venango County, Pennsylvania (interestingly, right near a town called Coal Hill), maybe 100 miles northeast of Pittsburgh. We all know that H.J. Heinz, of pickle legend, is based in Pittsburgh. The railroad cars in the background are 40-foot outside-braced wooden boxcars. Back in the early 1920s, the likely date of this photo, it was common for pickles to be transported in brine, without refrigeration, so for even a long trip (the Missouri Pacific Railroad went all the way to Texas), a boxcar full of pickle tanks would have made sense. Heinz operated its own pickle tank cars beginning in the late 19th century, but like these trucks, they used individual barrel-type tanks mounted on a flatcar frame.

Scottsays:

February 4, 2011 5:16 pm

Sounds plausible to me.

I wonder what they used to transfer the vats from the trucks to the rail cars. They must have been very heavy. I guess with enough guys they could manhandle them but it looks like the level of the truck bed is lower than the rail car so perhaps they would have had to lift them.

Mac Mackaysays:

February 4, 2011 8:24 pm

As interchange boxcars (MoPac did not reach Oil City) they could be going to or coming from just about anywhere.
My great grandfather worked signals on the B&O out of New Castle PA which is my only qualification to observe that I think they are simply earthenware crocks. Used for sewers or water mains and the like. Now displaced by concrete, they were at one time made of earthenware and kiln baked. The inconsistency of the color lends credence to this thesis – which is essentially a hot air guess.

duke5572says:

February 4, 2011 9:46 pm

I agree with Mac Mackay. Those sure look like storm sewer “tile”, and it appears that they are sized so that the male end would fit in the female end…explaining the flange.

I would think that pickles would be transported in a smaller barrel…why make them so large? Surely pickles were transported in traditional “barrels” that we now only see in wine and whiskey manufacture, right?

johnfromstaffssays:

February 5, 2011 5:47 am

If they were vats, and were 4 feet high and four feet across, then the internal volume would be about 300 imperial gallons. Each gallon of water weighs ten pounds, so 3,000 lbs plus the weight of the vat, say 300 lbs, times four vats. Divide by 2240 to get about six tons total per truck. (All units are English, hence the 10 lb gallon).

Is a six ton payload feasible on a 1920s truck with balloon tyres? Maybe not, so I’d go with the pipes theory.

Pete Madsensays:

February 6, 2011 5:10 pm

By the time in the late 50’s that I was dealing with storm sewer piping, pipes of that diameter were about twice that long, and loaded horizontally crossways on a truck bed. But conditions in the early 20’s may have required shorter pipes…I can’t say. I don’t see any lifting tackle at all in the photo. *ohhh, my back!*

Ol' Shel'says:

February 8, 2011 12:47 pm

An image search for ‘pickle tank car’ will show you some great, pickle-specific rolling stock. They had rolling wooden tanks for just this purpose. I’m sure that some brands were put into individual wooden barrels and shipped, but they wouldn’t have been this big.

These parts seem to have a sheen to them and lack any grain or breaks. Seems like another vote for earthenware pipes.